5 ms·

Celsius is not “equally arbitrary - 0 is where water freezes and 100 it boils vs 2 random numbers I can never remember. Fahrenheit is also only used by one cou

Celsius is not “equally arbitrary - 0 is where water freezes and 100 it boils vs 2 random numbers I can never remember. Fahrenheit is also only used by one country in the entire world: America.

peteradio 3y ago
Yea, well 0F is too damn cold for humans and 100F is too damn hot, so its a pretty good scale for humans.
- katbyte 3y ago
  knowing 0 is where water freezes and 100 where it boils sounds like a pretty dang useful scale for humans in all sorts of applications from science to cooking to safety to weather. 0f is what -15? that really doesn't mean anything meaningfully different then -5c or -20c its all cold and frozen where 0 being where water freezes and you can expect ice means something, as does water boiling at 100. there is a reason countries who still generally use lots of imperial units have fully switched over to metric temperatures.
  - peteradio 3y ago
    If you want to know if its freezing out just look at the water. Is it boiling? Again look at the water. Having the units align with human sense makes quite a bit of sense, I reiterate. Is it 50F? Well, that's quite dandy. Is it 50C? Am I dead or am I fine, couldn't tell you based on that dumb scale based on one particular molecules behavior. To be clear I'm not saying Celsius and Fahrenheit are on even footing, I'm saying Celsius is totally worthless when you already have Kelvin. Also the supposed benefit of Celsius goes out the window when you are not at Standard Pressure, woops!
    - katbyte 3y ago
      from the other side: 50F? is that cold or really hot? whats 100? will 0 kill me? i have no idea the numbers are random. 50C? oh that is halfway from frozen to boiling. 5C? water is nearly freezing. 0C its frozen better watch out for ice on the road (because you do realize you can't easily see blackice on roads?) what temp in F does water even freeze at? i have no idea. boil? ditto some random numbers. Fahrenheit gives you nothing over Celsius and makes literally no sense unless you grew up with it. it does not "align with human senses" in any real meaningful way - the numbers are random and only feel right to you as its what you are used to, just like anyone who grew up with Celsius has adjusted to those numbers, while also getting all the benefits of a logical scale. Celsius is logical, easy to grasp, provides a number of benefits in many applications, and used by 95% of the people on this planet.
      - peteradio 3y ago
        No, its not logical because we don't spend most our time doing science experiments. We do spend most of our time fighting the elements to survive. If you are confined to a hemisphere at average latitude you will see 95 percentiles between 0 and 100F (i.e. we fix the endpoints to human sensory perception thats why 50F is not some unimaginable value) and if you are outside those values then beware. That is a much more useful scale for 99.9% of humans outside of science. If you are in science/engineering and fuck up the conversion then probably you should get out of science/engineering.
        katbyte 3y ago
        I’m pretty sure fighting the elements to survive includes knowing when and how close one is to water freezing, and water boiling. So I’ve yet to hear a good argument for why Fahrenheit is better here, it does not really “relate to humans”. Humans regularly sense, encounter, and use temperatures above 100F so that is not the “endpoint of human sensory perceptions” and in the northern areas going before 0F is common. Not to mention you fridges freezer likely goes below 0F and again you sure can feel the difference between -10c and -20c
        peteradio 3y ago
        You've already lost the point if you are talking about interaction with human instruments like freezers. The point is about percentiles of typical weather experience. If you are getting scalded by boiling water I doubt a thermometer on the centigrade would have saved ya.
        katbyte 3y ago
        you are the one making claims like "the 0F to 100F scale matches human senses" not me. I am only pointing out that on both sides of the scale it is exceeded. Now you are moving the goal post to limit it to weather? every walk on hot sand or rock thats been in the sun all day. so air temperature? where that also doesn't match the natural weather in places all over the globe. so whats next "it matches the typical weather experience of these states in the US therefore its.. better" ? because many states will experience -F and over 100F. gotta say i do find the mental gymnastics used to defend F pretty funny
    - lamontcg 3y ago
      20C is about room temperature (22C is about where I like it, 18C at night) 25C is pretty pleasant outside 30C is pretty warm 35C is hot 40C is crazy hot 45C is GTFO 50C is i'm definitely dead, dunno about you And I'm American, I've just visited enough other countries enough to get a handle on the scale.
- RichardCA 3y ago
  David Goodstein in the old PBS Mechanical Universe series gave a good lecture about this. https://youtu.be/eZdUKMDfJ_o?t=1365 https://youtu.be/eZdUKMDfJ_o?t=1365
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
> Fahrenheit is also only used by one country in the entire world: America. Firstly, America is a continent, not a country and secondly, there are some other territories such as the Cayman Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia that also use it.
- katbyte 3y ago
  north america is a continent, not america. america is a short term/name oten used for the united states of america: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_(disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_(disambiguation) and ok you are right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#Usage its the USA, Cayman Islands, and liberia that do not use Celsius so i will rephrase: 95% of the worlds population uses Celsius not Fahrenheit.
rcme 3y ago
Just because most of the world uses one arbitrary scale doesn't make that scale less arbitrary. Consider this: temperature is a measure of kinetic energy of a substances molecules. Surely, the molecules of something measured at -5C have negative kinetic energy, right? Right???
- katbyte 3y ago
  100 equal divisions between water freezing and boiling is less arbitrary then to random numbers. negative numbers in one represent being below a phase change of water vs the other it means... ? there is a reason the entire world uses C
  - rcme 3y ago
    > is less arbitrary then Maybe it's slightly less arbitrary, but it's still very arbitrary. > there is a reason the entire world uses C. Again, the fact that C is widely used doesn't mean the scale isn't arbitrary.
    - katbyte 3y ago
      i never said it wasn't arbitrary, i was disputing that they were equally arbitrary and pointing out one is far more sensible and useful.
fargle 3y ago
these aren't random numbers at all. 0 F is the lowest temperature a saturated mixture of water and ammonium chloride salt freezes at. Adding salts to water depresses the freezing point until you can't absorb any more salt. 100 F was an estimate of human body temperature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit in agreement with the parent comment, F (1724) is no more or less arbitrary than C (1742). Pick the temperature of two things and divide into 100 parts. Liking one or the other better doesn't make it more or less arbitrary. there's a lot to recommend SI units of course, it's a very neat system and wonderful how it fits together. but C was invented 50 years before the metric system was proposed and, while convenient, is simply an arbitrary choice, albeit convenient.
- katbyte 3y ago
  > (1724) is no more or less arbitrary than C (1742). Pick the temperature of two things and divide into 100 parts. F is basically 2 random guesses at what 0 and 100 should be. C is the difference between water freezing and boiling / 100, at sea level. F is more arbitrary the C. C is less arbitrary as the 0 and 100 points are grounded in reality.
  - fargle 3y ago
    > F is basically 2 random guesses I'll assume good intent. F is definitely not two random guesses. Please read carefully what I posted, F is no more random thah C. It has well defined, but different choices for the two points. The saturated mixture of water and salts is the coldest one can get liquid water to go at 1 ATM which is a reasonable idea for the time period. And why water? that's choice itself is arbitrary. Why not the triple-point of methane and the temperature of burning magnesium?

Celsius is not “equally arbitrary - 0 is where water freezes and 100 it boils vs 2 random numbers I can never remember. Fahrenheit is also only used by one country in the entire world: America.

peteradio 3y ago

Yea, well 0F is too damn cold for humans and 100F is too damn hot, so its a pretty good scale for humans.

katbyte 3y ago
knowing 0 is where water freezes and 100 where it boils sounds like a pretty dang useful scale for humans in all sorts of applications from science to cooking to safety to weather. 0f is what -15? that really doesn't mean anything meaningfully different then -5c or -20c its all cold and frozen where 0 being where water freezes and you can expect ice means something, as does water boiling at 100. there is a reason countries who still generally use lots of imperial units have fully switched over to metric temperatures.
- peteradio 3y ago
  If you want to know if its freezing out just look at the water. Is it boiling? Again look at the water. Having the units align with human sense makes quite a bit of sense, I reiterate. Is it 50F? Well, that's quite dandy. Is it 50C? Am I dead or am I fine, couldn't tell you based on that dumb scale based on one particular molecules behavior. To be clear I'm not saying Celsius and Fahrenheit are on even footing, I'm saying Celsius is totally worthless when you already have Kelvin. Also the supposed benefit of Celsius goes out the window when you are not at Standard Pressure, woops!
  - katbyte 3y ago
    from the other side: 50F? is that cold or really hot? whats 100? will 0 kill me? i have no idea the numbers are random. 50C? oh that is halfway from frozen to boiling. 5C? water is nearly freezing. 0C its frozen better watch out for ice on the road (because you do realize you can't easily see blackice on roads?) what temp in F does water even freeze at? i have no idea. boil? ditto some random numbers. Fahrenheit gives you nothing over Celsius and makes literally no sense unless you grew up with it. it does not "align with human senses" in any real meaningful way - the numbers are random and only feel right to you as its what you are used to, just like anyone who grew up with Celsius has adjusted to those numbers, while also getting all the benefits of a logical scale. Celsius is logical, easy to grasp, provides a number of benefits in many applications, and used by 95% of the people on this planet.
    - peteradio 3y ago
      No, its not logical because we don't spend most our time doing science experiments. We do spend most of our time fighting the elements to survive. If you are confined to a hemisphere at average latitude you will see 95 percentiles between 0 and 100F (i.e. we fix the endpoints to human sensory perception thats why 50F is not some unimaginable value) and if you are outside those values then beware. That is a much more useful scale for 99.9% of humans outside of science. If you are in science/engineering and fuck up the conversion then probably you should get out of science/engineering.
      - katbyte 3y ago
        I’m pretty sure fighting the elements to survive includes knowing when and how close one is to water freezing, and water boiling. So I’ve yet to hear a good argument for why Fahrenheit is better here, it does not really “relate to humans”. Humans regularly sense, encounter, and use temperatures above 100F so that is not the “endpoint of human sensory perceptions” and in the northern areas going before 0F is common. Not to mention you fridges freezer likely goes below 0F and again you sure can feel the difference between -10c and -20c
        peteradio 3y ago
        You've already lost the point if you are talking about interaction with human instruments like freezers. The point is about percentiles of typical weather experience. If you are getting scalded by boiling water I doubt a thermometer on the centigrade would have saved ya.
        katbyte 3y ago
        you are the one making claims like "the 0F to 100F scale matches human senses" not me. I am only pointing out that on both sides of the scale it is exceeded. Now you are moving the goal post to limit it to weather? every walk on hot sand or rock thats been in the sun all day. so air temperature? where that also doesn't match the natural weather in places all over the globe. so whats next "it matches the typical weather experience of these states in the US therefore its.. better" ? because many states will experience -F and over 100F. gotta say i do find the mental gymnastics used to defend F pretty funny
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    20C is about room temperature (22C is about where I like it, 18C at night) 25C is pretty pleasant outside 30C is pretty warm 35C is hot 40C is crazy hot 45C is GTFO 50C is i'm definitely dead, dunno about you And I'm American, I've just visited enough other countries enough to get a handle on the scale.
RichardCA 3y ago
David Goodstein in the old PBS Mechanical Universe series gave a good lecture about this. https://youtu.be/eZdUKMDfJ_o?t=1365 https://youtu.be/eZdUKMDfJ_o?t=1365

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

> Fahrenheit is also only used by one country in the entire world: America. Firstly, America is a continent, not a country and secondly, there are some other territories such as the Cayman Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia that also use it.

katbyte 3y ago
north america is a continent, not america. america is a short term/name oten used for the united states of america: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_(disambiguation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_(disambiguation) and ok you are right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#Usage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit#Usage its the USA, Cayman Islands, and liberia that do not use Celsius so i will rephrase: 95% of the worlds population uses Celsius not Fahrenheit.

rcme 3y ago

Just because most of the world uses one arbitrary scale doesn't make that scale less arbitrary. Consider this: temperature is a measure of kinetic energy of a substances molecules. Surely, the molecules of something measured at -5C have negative kinetic energy, right? Right???

katbyte 3y ago
100 equal divisions between water freezing and boiling is less arbitrary then to random numbers. negative numbers in one represent being below a phase change of water vs the other it means... ? there is a reason the entire world uses C
- rcme 3y ago
  > is less arbitrary then Maybe it's slightly less arbitrary, but it's still very arbitrary. > there is a reason the entire world uses C. Again, the fact that C is widely used doesn't mean the scale isn't arbitrary.
  - katbyte 3y ago
    i never said it wasn't arbitrary, i was disputing that they were equally arbitrary and pointing out one is far more sensible and useful.

fargle 3y ago

these aren't random numbers at all. 0 F is the lowest temperature a saturated mixture of water and ammonium chloride salt freezes at. Adding salts to water depresses the freezing point until you can't absorb any more salt. 100 F was an estimate of human body temperature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit in agreement with the parent comment, F (1724) is no more or less arbitrary than C (1742). Pick the temperature of two things and divide into 100 parts. Liking one or the other better doesn't make it more or less arbitrary. there's a lot to recommend SI units of course, it's a very neat system and wonderful how it fits together. but C was invented 50 years before the metric system was proposed and, while convenient, is simply an arbitrary choice, albeit convenient.

katbyte 3y ago
> (1724) is no more or less arbitrary than C (1742). Pick the temperature of two things and divide into 100 parts. F is basically 2 random guesses at what 0 and 100 should be. C is the difference between water freezing and boiling / 100, at sea level. F is more arbitrary the C. C is less arbitrary as the 0 and 100 points are grounded in reality.
- fargle 3y ago
  > F is basically 2 random guesses I'll assume good intent. F is definitely not two random guesses. Please read carefully what I posted, F is no more random thah C. It has well defined, but different choices for the two points. The saturated mixture of water and salts is the coldest one can get liquid water to go at 1 ATM which is a reasonable idea for the time period. And why water? that's choice itself is arbitrary. Why not the triple-point of methane and the temperature of burning magnesium?